Page:Vol 2 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/46

26 to a prince hateful to them from boyhood. The return from captivity of the deposed Cohuanacoch had created a sympathy which soon turned the current of popularity in favor of one who had suffered so much for the national cause. Aware of the feeling with respect to himself, Ixtlilxochitl felt it almost a matter of necessity to leave his brother at Tezcuco in enjoyment of the regal honors accorded him before his very face. He even thought it politic to assign him a certain portion of the revenue. He withdrew to his former northern domains, establishing his capital at Otumba, where a new palace was erected.

Not unlike the rewards of Ixtlilxochitl were those of the Tlascaltecs, to whom the Spaniards owed a vast debt — their lives, and the moral and physical aid which sustained them in adversity, and in the initiatory operations which led to ultimate success. In this act of forging fetters for adjoining peoples, fetters which were also to shackle themselves, they had been impelled not alone by a hatred of the Aztecs, more intense and exalted than that of the Tezcucan prince, but by a friendship based on admiration, and cemented by Cortés' politic favors. At the opening of the Tepeaca campaign they had certainly been led to form great expectations, and promises flowed freely when